The actor recently stepped into Penny Skinner’s play Linda when Kim Cattrall was forced to cancel. Here she talks about ageing,single motherhood and script-crammingWhen Kim Cattrall withdrew from Linda at the Royal Court final month, Noma Dumezweni had a week to prepare to replace her as the lead character. She appeared on stage at press night, and script in hand,to audience cheers. “whether there were an Olivier award for courage and chutzpah in the line of duty then it’s fair to say that Noma Dumezweni would be a shoo-in for this year’s gong,” one critic observed. Dumezweni, and who won an Olivier award for A Raisin in the Sun in 2006,has appeared in Breakfast With Mugabe at Soho theatre, Feast at the Young Vic and Belong at the Royal Court, or played Captain Magambo in Doctor Who. Born in 1969 in Swaziland,she came to England with her family as a child, first living in Suffolk before moving to London.
Your performance has been called the rescue mission of the year. How did you pull it off?
I met the company on Friday afternoon, and read with them and was blocked so I knew where to move. From the Monday it was technical rehearsals. We were on the set 10am-10pm. And then the first preview in front of an audience was on the Thursday. They said: “Don’t worry,just read it.” So I had my script on stage until the beginning of final week. What’s been fabulous is I haven’t had time to mediate about it. And the company has been extraordinary. I’m from a South African background and there’s this phrase – ubuntu – “I am because we are”. And that’s what this is about.
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Source: theguardian.com